Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Bubble Kings

Excerpt from my other blog, "The Word." It seemed applicable to some of the topics I write about on this blog, so I decided to include it here. For a little context on dialectical tensions, the difference between God's will and human action that informs and shapes the bible, take a look at a post on 2 Chronicles 10-16.

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For anyone that follows the economy, or are really sore about it, it might help to take a look at the cycle of kings presented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles in terms of bubbles (and while you're at it, read anything and everything by Matt Taibbi). Market bubbles, dialectical tension bubbles...Whatever. The point is that there is imbalance until the bubble pops.

Strict regulation [adherence to God's word] means things go pretty well, though there isn't much room to - you know - stretch out and test the limits. As regulations are chiseled away [i.e. kings fall from God's will] by human nature manifested by greed [and apostasy], things go well for a while, or at least people think they do. In reality, a bubble is forming, a pressure differential that arises from what is promised and what in reality exists [In the case of the economic crisis, money. In the case of the bible, adherence to God's word]. Just as in nature, the bubble cannot sustain itself, and it bursts. The bank goes under. Judah is invaded.

Here's where the metaphor gets really sick and twisted. For some reason these bubbles continue. For some reason they are allowed to happen. In the Bible, God allows for a certain degree of human freedom before he himself teaches his own people a lesson. Old generations are replaced, and the cycle generally finds a good king to lead again. In case of the financial crisis, the U.S. government allows for a certain degree of freedom before the whole thing comes crashing down on its own accord. And then it bails out the people who perpetrated the crime.

Allow me to take my metaphor too far: the state of safety is adherence to God. [And you can draw your own conclusions about the parallel metaphor.]

But I progress.
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